(Video link here.) On the heels of Sally’s how-to-make-herb-salt-video on The Splendid Table this weekend, we thought this piece by British ‘ecclectic, eccentric and innovative musician’ Imogen Heap would make a nice combo-platter. Heap “sings” salt into a beautiful and very controlled, rather cosmic-looking pattern. Actually, singing might not be the right word – we actually dislike Heap’s sound – but LOVE how she turns it “visual”, with ordinary salt.
Wonder what the process was that led her to discover out-there technique….
(Video link here). Our recent balloon post about how wonderful it felt to let balloons go (and make a wish) created quite an uproar. It seems we hadn’t considered the environmental impact of balloons – especially the foil kind – on the environment, so we redacted it and tried to impart some semblence of fair-and-unbiased reporting into the mix. Even though we haven’t done deep enough research to know if latex balloons properly filled with helium and without ribbons pose a dire environmental risk, we’re stearing clear of sending balloons into the atmosphere, in case.
One reader had a suggestion: “tissue wishing papers that when lit on fire float into the air until they disappear into tiny bits of ash. My friends and I let the birthday person wish on one and send it soaring.” We googled “wishing papers” and came up with “sky lanterns“. They are purportedly biodegradable lanterns are made out of rice paper, non-toxic wax and bamboo. Their wax “fuel cell” is essentially a candle which when lit, creates air currents that cause the paper lantern to fly into the air, as much as a mile high.read more…
Last week, we were working away when suddenly we felt the air change. We looked out the window to see a storm cloud right out of a Disney movie: ominous swirls of gray collecting on the horizon. A fierce wind was whipping through the trees in the park across the way. All we could do was STOP. We sat on the terrace as the storm rolled in, amazed. And despite all the work and to-do’s on our plate, Nature seemed to be reminding us to look, LOOK at what’s going on here. Here was something WAY bigger and fiercer than we could ever have imagined, that, at the same time, we realized we were part of and partly, the cause of it.
As the sh*t hits the fan around us in so many people’s lives, we find ourselves saying “the hell with it”, and taking time out, to look, bear witness, be here, instead of on a computer or in the future. read more…
A couple of weeks ago, after we posted our invitation/plea to become a ‘friend with benefits’ and support ‘the improvised life’, we received quite an outpouring of support, from subscription sign-ups to one-time donations to messages of how much our daily postings mean to our readers. Our favorite was this one:
Hi,
Love your work and look forward to each installment. I just donated to you and would like to remain anonymous if possible. If not, please just put ‘Gratitude’.
Thanks.
In lieu of a link that says Gratitude (where would it go?), we made this sign, which is really what WE feel: pure gratitude for what we get to do daily and the amazing exchange and community we find ourselves living in, that is ‘the improvised life’. Thank you deeply.
Our new neighborhood is hit-or-miss for flowers…come to think of it, our old one was as well. Sometimes, when you REALLY need them to liven up the place, there just isn’t much of a selection. Then we took the word “liven” to heart in thinking about alternatives we could use when we couldn’t find great flowers. It’s having something alive, and from nature that really works the magic…flowers just happen to be one of many possibilities. We love these summer apricots in the brass basket a friend recently gave us from The Museum of Arts and Design’s store in New York City (and available by mail order). Imagine the setting WITHOUT this alt-arrangement and you see what a difference it makes.
We’ve also taken to picking up leafy, newly fallen branches read more…
Over the past few month’s public radio’s The Splendid Table hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper has featured an illuminating series called Key 3: a series of discussions with great cooks (not just professional chefs) about the three recipes or techniques they think everyone should know. In a break from traditional radio, Kasper and her team made videos in the cook’s kitchens so you can get an in-depth lesson – and the thinking behind – their Key 3′s. So far the stellar line-up includes Daniel Boulud, Lydia Bastianich, Andrea Reusing, Isaac Mizrahi, Andy Ricker and…
…Sally Schneider. Just before Sally moved out of her old apartment, Lynne and her team stopped by to film her talking about her Key 3 which will air launches Friday evening. They include Perfect Roast Chicken, Essential Chocolate Cake, and Fragrant Herb Salt. We’ll post the video once it airs, along with the recipes.
But meanwhile, we recommend starting with Daniel Boulud making his fabulous Aioli, a rich Provencal garlic sauce. (Lynne filmed him right before coming to Sally’s and brought some of it with her, so we know for sure it’s swell.) His easy-to-make aioli is a perfect summer sauce for many reasons:
A while after we posted about Laura Handler’s lovely Montana cabin, and after many emails back and forth in which we discovered we lived in the same neighborhood in New York, and many other affinities, we received a package in the mail. With it came a note: “Just another worlds-colliding-thing from here that I hope that you will enjoy.”
In it, we found a box of Béquet Celtic Sea Salt Caramels. We couldn’t eat just one, because they reminded us so much of caramels we’d had in France, and rarely found here. Caramels need to be freshly made, with a lot of butter and cream, and most packaged caramels – no matter how fabulous the packaging – have been sitting around too long.
Béquet’s are the the real deal. And there is a great story behind their creation, a life-changing event that resulted in a thriving gourmet caramel business (in Montana, no less): read more…
(Video link here.) We can’t think of a better way to celebrate this lovely ordinary day than with this video of the great Maira Kalman – whose remarkable books are a blend of images and words into vivid stories – giving her two cents on what it is to be human. She covers a lot of ground: work, love, identity, life, death, THE POINT OF IT ALL.
I’ve been circling the story of the transformation of ‘the improvised life’s new Laboratory from vin ordinaire apartment to its new incarnation of fluid, morphable, multi-use space for living and improvising (a glimpse above), wondering how to tell it. Having shown the early sketches and plans, it seems like the best bet would be to show BEFORE photos of the place as it was when I first found it, along with notations of the immediate challenges I saw, so you can get your bearings. I’ll get into the wild specifics of planning and renovation in the months to come.
Since we started renovating ‘the improvised life’s space’ we’ve had our eyes peeled for solutions to various design problems. We’re finding that once we have a question in our head, inspiration and ideas can come from the most unlikely places.
Desperately needing a proper desk to work on, we hurredly devised one out of hollow core doors (below) on spray painted salvaged file cabinets. It works fine – a sleek 13 feet, but we weren’t crazy about the wood veneer, which has an unexpectedly reddish cast. Wonder what we could do to change it?: reverse-painted glass crossed our minds, as did slabs of steel or copper we found at a an internet site. Then two modernist Italian vases we saw on Mondoblogo grabbed our attention. What if we painted the desktop that fabulous red of the fifties vase by Antonia Campi, above? read more…
We’ve gotten quite a few email submissions from our readers lately, along with a stead uptick in traffic. Yaye. Or should we say YUM, the beautiful fragment of type Maria Robledo’s daughter Isabel created. At bottom, a shipping pallet that’s been transformed into an artwork by Mexican artist and reader Mary Carmen. You can see the process at her Flickr.
But what really knocks us out are letters from readers – some who have had to deal with serious life transitions’ – saying how much ‘the improvised life’ resonates with them…and how they are using its message to expand their own life and work. Instead of crumpling, they’re rising to the challenges, thinking in new ways. Like this one from Tina Juvonen in Seattle:read more…
UPDATE: After we published the post below, about giving balloons to grownups so they can experience “setting them free”, we got a number of comments alerting us to the dangers balloons pose to birds, wildlife and the environment. Charmed by balloons, we confess to having been completely naive about these harsh realities, which you can read about here. As we discovered when a reader freaked out about a post about shipping pallets, many of the dangers were overblown and the issues often more complex than stated, so we posted essential info. Our research indicates that Mylar balloons pose the worst environmental danger as they are basically foil and nylon; old-fashioned balloons are normally made of latex and are biodegradable. Numbers vary wildly as to how much wildlife is actually hurt or killed by latex balloons. There is some research that indicates that latex balloons, fully inflated and without any strings or ribbons attached, tend to shatter into tiny pieces at high atmospheres (about 5 miles); the fragments drop to earth to biodegrade . All that being said, we prefer to err on the side of safety, and have redacted our post:
A friend recently sent us an unusual birthday gift: a huge gaggle of classic, brightly colored helium balloons. What was unusual was the idea she had for them:
Remember when you were a kid and you accidentally let a balloon go, and you’d watch it, heart-broken, rise into the air? The balloon escaped, was set free, to ride the currents and seek its fortune as it were. I thought it might be fun to let one go here and there – or all of them – intentionally, and feel the freedom of watching them fly.
Inspired idea THAT IS POTENTIALLY REALLY BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
The balloons, powerfully heliumed, arrived with a note that read:
“Happy Birthday, With all our love. (Not to be used for travel.)”
. They are purportedly biodegradable lanterns are made out of rice paper, non-toxic wax and bamboo. Their wax “fuel cell” is essentially a candle which when lit, creates air currents that cause the paper lantern to fly into the air, as much as a mile high. 
